Political & Elections

zoosermom · Senior Member

RE: Saving parking spots is dangerous business

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

This is why I will never live in NYC. Even though Zoosermom lives there.

I get mildly annoyed when I have to park across the street because some random stranger parked in front of my house. I really like the simplicity of parking near my home without engaging in war. That's how we boring suburbanites like to roll.

ImSoAnarchist · Senior Member

So, is the solution to do nothing?

Are you inept?

zoosermom · Senior Member

In NYC, one cannot hold a parking spot for a friend without fisticuffs
You can't hold a parking spot. I'm flabbergasted at the concept.

Bogney, we can do things. Arrest violent offenders, encourage civility (which doesn't include saving parking spots), make sure men know that they can never hit a woman, make sure women know that if they hit a man first, they may get hit back and are more likely to be seriously hurt.

The perp is an animal, no doubt about it. Deserves to go to jail for a long time, but the victim shouldn't have started the confrontation. I wouldn't care if my daughter was right or wrong (and this young lady was wrong). There is no principle, no parking spot, no pissing contest worth the outcome. You never know who you're dealing with, so it's best not to provoke a confrontation. It's also damn rude, not to mention inherently aggressive, to save a parking spot. It's just not done.

Bogney · Senior Member

So, is the solution to do nothing?

ImSoAnarchist · Senior Member

Public transportation sounds like it might become a public safety issue, not just a green issue.

This is what Ludwig von Mises called the "crisis of interventionism": one intervention (in this case, the pricing of parking) causes a problem, which creates demand for further intervention (increasing public transportation), which in turn creates demand for further intervention, and so on.

Bogney · Senior Member

Wait a minute. In NYC, one cannot hold a parking spot for a friend without fisticuffs, and a small woman will be pummelled into a coma for trying to hold her ground for a parking spot?

And why is New York considered, or why do New Yorkers consider New York, to be the height of civilization in the U.S.? It seems more and more like a jungle. Public transportation sounds like it might become a public safety issue, not just a green issue.

busdriver11 · Guru

"It was far enough back that I've kind of forgotten all the details but I think it was the fact she backed up over him - repeatedly - that did her in."

Well, he was a cheating SOB. Which in my book is worse than a parking spot hoarder. There are alot of women that might say he deserved it...

poetgrl · Senior Member

Been off the internet for a while, working on one of my projects day and night, and I come back to discover we are discussing parking issues. I'm relieved to not have missed anything.

In Chicago, you shovel it out, you keep it..... For a while.

Then, they come by and move all the furniture out of the street.

Interestingly, my brother, who lives in the cop and firefighter neighborhood, gets to keep his spot all winter. NOBODY touches a shoveled spot over there. Ev. ah. evileye

catahoula · Guru

Well to do, petite soccor moms prefer Mercedes.

The argument moved to the hotel's parking lot, where Clara Harris got behind the wheel of her Mercedes and ran her husband down, authorities said.

It was far enough back that I've kind of forgotten all the details but I think it was the fact she backed up over him - repeatedly - that did her in.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/1576669/detail.html

busdriver11 · Guru

Absolutely. You don't put yourself in a dangerous situation on purpose. If things get heated, you step away, move on. You never know who has a gun, is a gangbanger, or will do something rash with a vehicle. Even petite soccer moms have killed others in a fit of rage.

zoosermom · Senior Member

There is absolutely no reason to raise your hand to another person, regardless of size and gender, in the course of everyday life. Which this was. But women have to really understand that there are men who are not in the least reluctant to resort to violence, even against women and over trivial things. I tell my girls that all the time. That just because their dad wouldn't hit them doesn't mean other men won't, so they have a responsibility to conduct themselves in such a way as to not provoke anyone's temper.

The victim was wrong, also, in that parking is first come, first served. The felon was there first with his car. She should have moved and she shouldn't have hit him. But it wasn't a capital offense.

busdriver11 · Guru

Certainly what she did was very foolish, in New York, with such hysteria over parking spots.

On the other hand, in his case, I always think what the reasonable person would do. It would be like me hitting a child for something that angered me. Is there ever a situation that I would hit a child hard enough to throw him/her up in the air and put him into a coma? Yes. If he was pointing a gun at me, ready to use it. If he was flailing around, hitting me with his little hands, cursing at me? Nah, I don't see it. Even if he was doing the unthinkable of saving a precious parking spot.

Maybe I'd have more accurate details if I lived in the area. Because from an outsider looking in, this seems like it was nothing more than rage. You don't hit someone hard enough to kill them unless you're trying to save your life, or that of someone elses. Ever. For any reason. No matter what stupid thing they are doing. Because then you might kill them, and you might go to jail, no matter how foolish they were. You do not let your adrenalin get them best of you. Just a little something called self control.

His rap sheet full of weapons possession and assault arrests doesn't exactly help his case now, do they?

soccerguy315 · Guru

geeps... obviously the guy is guilty attacking the woman.

HOWEVER... the woman would not be fighting for her life if she did not try to save a parking space. When the woman saw the confrontation coming, why didn't she leave and let the guy have the parking spot? She wanted to stand her ground, and paid the price.

Is saving a parking space worth potentially getting killed?

zoosermom · Senior Member

The man should have controlled himself. Without question. But the young woman was acting aggressively, as well, by the act of saving the parking spot. We have a lot of that in the boroughs and it never ends well. She should have known better. Definitely shouldn't have been attacked, but it was a mistake on the victim's part. Prayers for her recovery, though.

ImSoAnarchist · Senior Member

Free parking is the problem here. If all parking places in Manhattan cost money (instead of most), the free market would solve the problem.

Yes, exactly. This is simple supply and demand economics, an easily solvable problem, and yet it has persisted for years. Quite ridiculous.

Jordcin · Veteran Member

I can't stand when the suspect's lawer goes on about how he has two small children. So? When I see that in an article all I can picture is the creep punching the two small children. You don't just turn that off and on.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

The aggressor allegedly beat up, and almost killed, a tiny woman. There is no excuse, and he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

OTOH, I think some of you don't realize about parking in New York City. Parking spaces are very, very difficult to find, and are available first-come, first-serve. "Saving" a parking space is rightly regarded as heinous, and is of course illegal. Most people wouldn't resort to violence on seeing the woman preventing them from parking in the space they'd found, but many people would be infuriated.

Free parking is the problem here. If all parking places in Manhattan cost money (instead of most), the free market would solve the problem.

busdriver11 · Guru

Yeah, I'm with geeps on this one. I'm unsure what the daughter actually did, besides attempting to hold a parking spot for her boyfriend. Of course, parking is at a premium in NYC, so perhaps holding a spot entitles a man to punch a small young woman in the head, putting her into a coma?

We do things a little differently out here in the PNW, holding parking spots, no problem. Cutting in line at Starbucks, well, that could cause an indirect glare or something. Briefly.

blankmind · Senior Member

This is what happens when two idiots meet.

geeps20 · Senior Member

^what applies to the daughter?....A guy punches a 25 year old lady in the face over a parking spot?..
Fry the bastard....

soccerguy315 · Guru

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/brutal_attack_for_this_space_I2J6ZJssMQ4l0ej5VTlWsM

It's funny how the victims mothers says this without realizing that it applies equally to her daughter:

"You have no idea how horrible this is and the senselessness that it was over a parking spot."